“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “If you get him off—”
“No deal,” Willoughby said. “This isn’t a collection case, this is murder.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got someone coming in at one,” he said. “Are we agreed? Your firm handles the preparation — under my supervision — and I handle the trial itself. I get paid my usual hourly fee for whatever time I put in before the trial, and however long the trial may actually run. Does that sound fair?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“There are other lawyers in town,” Willoughby said drily. “Not as good as Benny Weiss perhaps...”
“Okay, okay,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Here’s where I’d like you to start.”
“Start? He hasn’t even been served yet.”
“He will be served, so why not get a jump on the state’s attorney? None of this’ll be wasted motion, Matthew, believe me. Any edge we can get will be worth the effort. The prosecution’s case will undoubtedly rest on (a) the fact that Michelle Harper made a formal complaint to the police charging that her husband had knocked her around on the night before the murder, (b) the fact that Harper bought a five-gallon can and had it filled with gasoline two days before the murder, (c) the fact that his fingerprints are on the can, and (d) the fact that someone has identified him as the man struggling with his wife on the night the murder was committed. I’m sure that guy at the garage really sold him the can and filled it for him, he has no reason to be lying about that. But how come his fingerprints aren’t on it, together with Harper’s? Talk to him, Matthew, find out in detail how he handled that can, how he filled it, and so on. Talk to Harper, too. Find out whether or not he took that can with him when he went to Miami. If he did, we’ve got trouble because that means it was in his possession and not laying around where anybody could have got hold of it. Fingerprints impress a jury, Matthew, they read too many detective novels and see too many movies. So get after that gasoline can and find out where it came from and where it went and how many people could have got hold of it before it ended up on the beach where the body was found.”
I looked at him and sighed.
“As for this fisherman, whatever the hell his name is...”
“Luther Jackson.”
“White or black?”
“White.”
“No matter. The point is, did he really see Harper on the beach or can we show that his identification can’t be trusted? He’s the first guy you’ve got to talk to, Matthew.”
“Okay,” I said, and sighed again.
“Now about Michelle,” Willoughby said, “who, unfortunately, is unavailable for further comment. She said her husband was the one who beat her black and blue. But how do we know he was?”
“Well, she came to my office...”
“Yes, and you took her to the police. But whose word do we have except Michelle’s — who now happens to be dead? How do we know it wasn’t some other guy who beat her up? And incidentally murdered her the following night?”
“She went to a neighbor for advice,” I said. “It was the neighbor who suggested she come to me.”
“After she heard Michelle’s story, right?”
“Right.”
“From Michelle’s mouth, and nobody else’s. Go see this neighbor — what’s her name again?”
“Sally Owen.”
“Sally Owen, right. Go talk to her, find out exactly what Michelle told her that Monday morning after her husband allegedly beat her up. Maybe Michelle said something we don’t yet know about.”
“All right,” I said.
“But first find this guy Luther Jackson and ask him what he saw and heard on that beach. He’s the prosecution’s star witness, Matthew. Without him, they can flush their case down the toilet.”
“Okay,” I said.
“So much for shooting down the prosecution’s case,” Willoughby said. “That’s only half the battle. Our case relies solely on alibi. Harper claims he was in Miami — with a short excursion to Pompano and Vero Beach — from sometime Sunday morning till sometime Tuesday morning. Okay, if he was really in Miami on Sunday night, then he couldn’t have been here beating up his wife, the way she claimed he did. And if he was really in Miami on Monday night as well, then he couldn’t have been here on the beach with her, where Mr. Luther Jackson says he saw him. If his alibi stands up, we’re home free. Talk to him, Matthew, pick his brain for whatever he can remember about the time he spent on the east coast, locate some guy who saw him pissing off a pier on Sunday night, locate some dame who went to bed with him on Monday night, dig around, get the facts and get the people — especially the people — we’ll need to establish that he couldn’t have been here getting in trouble when he was actually someplace else. Have you got that?”
“I’ve got it,” I said.
“Okay,” Willoughby said, and smiled, and extended his hand. “Good luck,” he said.
I had the feeling I was shaking hands with the devil.
By law, the State’s Attorney’s Office must supply to defense counsel the names and addresses of any witnesses it will call to testify at a trial. Even though I was getting an early start, I had no reason to believe that I’d have any trouble with them now. Whatever Willoughby’s opinion, there wasn’t a lawyer in town who did not believe that Skye Bannister — the unfortunate name with which the state’s attorney had been blessed — was anything but a fair and decent man sworn to uphold the laws of the state. A man in Bannister’s office immediately told me the name of Luther Jackson’s boat and the marina at which it was docked, and then threw into the pot as well the names and addresses of Lloyd Davis and Harper’s mother in Miami. Surprisingly, he wished me good luck before he hung up. Everybody was wishing me good luck today. I began thinking that maybe I would need it.
I did not get to the Sandy Pass Marina until a little after one o’clock that afternoon. I had called ahead to the marina office, but the man who answered the phone sounded dubious about getting a message to Jackson before my intended arrival. He told me he’d “try,” and in my experience anyone who tells me he’ll “try” is really intending to go out to lunch. But the boat (named Luther’s Hammer, presumably in reference to the protest nailed to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg in the year 1517) was there in one of the slips, and a man I presumed to be Jackson himself was squatting on the fantail, mending a fishing net. He looked up as I approached.
“Mr. Jackson?” I said.
“Yep,” he said.
“Matthew Hope. I’m representing George Harper, the man you—”
“Come aboard,” he said, and rose from where he was squatting. He was, I guessed, somewhere between sixty and seventy years old, a man whose face seemed eroded by sun, sea, and water, his nose bulbous and veined, his flinty blue eyes set deep in leathery weathered skin. He did not extend his hand. Instead, he reached for a pipe resting on the transom, shook the dottle out over the side, filled it with tobacco, and was lighting it as I stepped onto the deck.
“If you’re here to say I didn’t see him,” he said, “I seen him, and that’s that.”
“That’s what I’d like to talk about,” I said.
“You’ll be wasting your time.”
“It’s my time,” I said.
“And mine, too. I already spent close to two hours with the grand jury this morning, I don’t appreciate having to spend another two with you.”
“Mr. Jackson,” I said, “a man’s life is at stake here.”
“I ain’t about to change my mind about what I seen and heard. I already told this first to the police, and next to the grand jury. Ain’t no reason for me to go back on what I already said.”